Hurdle rates hit the headlines after Blackstone‘s proposed 5 percent for its debut $40 billion infrastructure fund was rebuffed by some of the vehicle’s LPs, with one saying the benchmark was “just not a standard hurdle”. Despite this, the fund hit a first close with a 6 percent rate, with Blackstone joining a select club of managers able to push below the rather sticky ‘standard’ 8 percent.

In this first episode of our Spotlight podcast, Threadmark partner Patricia Wilkinson and PEI senior editors Toby Mitchenall, Bruno Alves and Jonathan Brasse take a look at the state of play across private equity, infrastructure and real estate to find out what kind of pressure this fund term is really under.